A new app from Efiko Software called “qTweeter” has just been released into the public Cydia repositories. This is a refreshing, new app, and seems to be built out of several never-before-seen APIs. The app is a background process and functions similar to SBSettings, another jailbreak-only miscellaneous system utility from Cydia.
What qTweeter does, is it allows you to post status updates to Twitter and Facebook, from any app on the iPhone/iPod touch. It functions similar to SBSettings, and is activated by a downward ‘swipe’ gesture starting from the clock’s position in the menu bar. The main interface of the app is extremely simple, and although somewhat featureless in terms of it only being able to post updates and nothing else, it has a beautifully designed interface. One of the never-before-seen APIs that I previously mentioned, is the way the slide-in menu is displayed and also the way it is deactivated.
The main menu appears as a dashboard-like slide-in layer over the home screen, and is deactivated by swiping upwards, flicking it off-screen. This may be somewhat hard to describe and convey, and must be seen to grasp the concept. The animation is very, very sweet, and seems to set this app apart from all others that we have seen so far.
Another cool animation is that when you first key in your Facebook login credentials. Again, it is hard to describe, but the pop-up window literally pops up. It’s beautiful! Now the thing to wonder is where did these APIs originate from, and whether they will be made available to app store apps anytime soon?
The app can be downloaded off the public Cydia repository, and is currently ‘required-donationware’. That is, after the trial period of 15 tweets ends, you are ‘required’ to ‘donate’. No comment on this rewording of the word ‘pay’ or ‘buy’.
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